The Nancy/Yomiko relationship is actually a hinted shoujo-ai and is pretty straightforward. Yomiko is constantly giving Nancy ‘looks’ and watching out for her–she lived with her and visited her in the ‘hospital’ (see OVA), but I agree that it was a relationship formed of guilt. She loved the real Nancy–this Nancy is just a way for her to feel better about the other’s death.

As for Gentleman, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he live for like, ever? Me thinks that him being alive for so long had something to do with all the smarts. And, since he was the head of the British Library and their secret police (for lack of a better turn), it makes sense that he had so much power. Add that in to the fact that in the OVA, it was possible to people to cause others to kill themselves just by listening to music, I would think that he had brain-controlling factors at work there. I don’t think Joker would do all that on his own, and the same goes for Wendy (at the end of the series, she’s back to her normal clumsy self.).
Nenene and Yomiko have a difficult relationship, with it being something like idol worship on Nenene’s part. She met Yomiko when she was 13 and just starting her career as a published writer–Yomiko saved her countless times, and, if you watch the OVA carefully you can see that Nenene takes care of Yomiko a lot. (while she’s not present in the OVA, Nenene leaves tons of little notes reminding Yomiko to do basic things like lock the door and take money, as well as paying bills.) Nenene really does love Yomiko, and probably doesn’t think of it as romantic because they first met under the student/teacher situation. If you read the Manga, the subtext is more clear.
The paper sisters memories start in Hong Kong– the only fake parts are how they met. They never found Anita in a church, alone. Anita did see the fire in the Library, and they did live together for years. The major problem was that they thought that since their memories were fake, that their emotions towards each other were fake as well. While the founding memory of their meeting was the rock for emotional ties, they learned to love each other on their own. Japan was not fake–The reason no one remembered Anita is because Gentleman was re-working the world how he wanted it. Japan wasn’t really Japan at that time, so it makes sense that no one would remember Anita, who was one of the few people to retain memories.
I hope i got most of the questions addressed.
If there are any issues with my facts, or you have any more questions, contact me at dana6133 @ aol.com

Nenene herself said it wasn’t ‘romantic love’ in the first 4 parts of the series.

I don’t get the impression that Nancy and Yomiko were not ‘together’ in a romantic way. We know that both Nancy and Yomiko have had important male lovers in the past. I personaly feel the relationships between all the character a plutonic, however, I get the distinct feeling that Wendy and Joker are involved with each other, or at least, Wendy wants them to be =^_^=

The other part which I do not understand is when Anita and Yomiko kidnapped Joker and took him to a small village house with Nancy and Drake, he told Anita that everything that happened in Hong Kong was actually memories which they put into the 3 sister’s head. If that is so, from which part was real, i mean not a fake memory. Hisa, Anita’s classmate didn’t recognise Anita when she went back to her school after she thought her sisters were dead, was Hisa and the whole school a fake memory they planted into her? But it sounds a bit impossible, because if that is fake, since when did they start to have their own real memories? what about the episodes which they showed about Anita going to school and she was living in Japan for a year?

I’m sorry if I mistaken anything or missed any part which explained it because mine was in Japannese version and the english subtitles wasn’t a good job, maybe the English version explained better.

thanks

However, and the following comments are my own opinion, I feel that the relationship between Yomiko and Nancy is not that of true love, but one that was forged by guilt, Yomiko’s guilt that is, due to the events that occured in the OVAs. The closest parallel I can think of now is that of Kaede&Rin from “Shuffle!”.

Nenene&Yomiko would be the true pairing, once Yomiko can bring herself to forgive herself. This was one aspect of the storyline that was not fully explored.

That said, I still enjoyed the series, and Yomiko Readman is my favourite in the OVAs, while Anita King is my favourite in the TV series. I would not mind if they did a ‘Fumoffu’ and made a spinoff series based on Anita King’s school life.

Cheers.

As often is the case, the hints for Yomiko and Nancy being romantically involved were very much ambigious. I don’t think I can provide much proof since it is so open to interpretation. It seemed obvious to me but I guess that’s just my interpretation.

Yes, it was explained. Episode 14 is the episode that explains all of that. The entire episode was about the Gentelman rebirth plan.

Did you watch this in English or Japanese? The English dub is quite good but the Japanese translation is a bit more accurate to what is actually being said. In the end, the English dub wins for me.

When did the show ever imply that Yomiko and Nancy were romantically involved? I don’t remember that at all.

The reason Yomiko burned down the library was because she went psycho after the British library tortured her boyfriend the eighteenth paper Donnie Nakajima to death. But, the manga does a better job of explaining that in detail.